


Āntaraprapañca

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Baahubali fics [3]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Compliant, Dreams, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Son Relationship, Oneshot, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 20:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14340384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Āntaraprapañca (Sanksrit): fantasies of the soul produced by ignorance





	Āntaraprapañca

“You are my mother,” Baahu says when Sivagami falls at his feet. He raises her up, his grip wonderfully warm and strong on her shoulders. “How could I not forgive you?”

* * *

Baahu says nothing when Sivagami whispers for forgiveness. He merely looks down at Devasena, curled up as tightly as possible in the corner of her cage to avoid the rain; looks at Mahendra, wailing for the sound of his mother’s voice, not liking being among strangers; and then looks back at Sivagami.

* * *

“My son will one day learn about his grandmother, who sacrificed her life to save him, who was the best ruler Mahishmati ever had.”

Baahu chuckles as Mahendra, now Shivu, attempts to scale the waterfall once more, and Sivagami finally feels her lips curving into something resembling a smile.

“No wonder he is named after you,” Baahu mumbles, and Sivagami, at last, lets out a low chuckle.

* * *

They linger over the mass grave where Kumar Varma’s corpse was hastily stuffed, a spot unmarked by tombstone or memorial. Baahu shakes his head and whispers, “The price of your blindness, mother. How it reaches even those who never crossed paths with you at all.”

* * *

“I never should have been Rajmata at all,” Sivagami says out of nowhere.

Baahu, who had been poring over a diagram -- even in this hereafter, nothing will separate him from his beloved machines and numbers -- starts and turns around to look at her.

“I never should have married the elder Prince of Mahishmati. I never should have come into contact with royalty at all. Better that I had lived out my days as a commoner, and never inflicted myself upon the realm.”

Baahu places a gentle hand on both of her arms. “And would,” he asks, “you have been satisfied with that? Without any Mahishmati to guide? You need the country to be there to be guided, needed it in such a way that you could not live without it.”

“How could I miss what I have never known?” Sivagami demands.

Baahu only smiles in response to that. “In some ways, you were as much a slave of the throne as is Kattappa. You lived for Mahishmati, as it lived for you. You never would have been happy without it.”

“And I am happy now?”

“I know that I am,” Baahu says, impossibly good and impossibly merciful.

Sivagami considers it, and then decides that is good enough for her.

* * *

Kuntala burns to cinders; the acrid stench of smoke reaches far, far above, to the clouds and beyond. Sivagami coughs and coughs.

Baahu watches her with cool appraisal as she doubles over, gasping and heaving. “How far your mistakes spread, Mother. How far your mistakes spread.”

* * *

Mahendra -- Shivu -- lifts the linga out of the water as though it is a feather, and Baahu and Sivagami break into identical smiles.

* * *

Baahu glares at her. “You were never really my mother at all. Perhaps _that_ is why you cast me away so easily. I was only a trophy, a badge of your kindness and mercy, and when I no longer danced to your tune, you banished me without a second thought.”

Sivagami closes her eyes, as though that can shield her. His words still reach her ears.

“It is a balm, that the same blood does not run in our veins. That your blood will not taint my son’s.” His breath ghosts over her ear, and she is suddenly reminded that he shares blood with Bijjala, with Bhalla. He may not share their temperaments, but he is still their kin, and has the capacity to hit where it stings the worst.

“It is cold comfort, but a balm nevertheless.”

* * *

Baahu is not there at all; no one is there. Only Sivagami and her own thoughts.

She prefers it this way.

* * *

Baahu is not there at all; no one is there. Only Sivagami and her own thoughts.

It is the worst punishment she could have been offered.

* * *

There are there, side by side, when the lightning crackles and Mahendra makes his reappearance in Mahishmati, his grandmother and father the two invisible pillars standing behind him, along with his mothers and Avantika.

* * *

Kattappa sits alone in the armory, gazing at a sword, his own hands, then back to the sword again, before letting out a low moan and crumpling to the ground, his face in his hands.

Baahu and Sivagami watch him, impassive spectators to this tableau of regret and grief. “You _knew_ he would do whatever the throne ordered, no matter how it broke his heart. You knew his loyalty, and exploited it to the fullest. You could have freed him, but you would have been robbing the throne of its most valuable lackey, so you let him stay in bondage.”

He leaves, and Sivagami thinks he is gone for good until, right by her ear-- “Bhalla didn’t get his ruthlessness just from his father.”

* * *

“We all make mistakes,” Baahu says, falteringly, hesitantly, as Sivagami weeps. “We all did. I did-- I should not have been so hell-bent on my own ideals. Perhaps Devasena could have set aside her pride-- though how could a daughter-in-law of Sivagami be anything other than willful? Kattappa should have refused. Bhalla made his own choices, and so did Uncle Bijjala. We all have some stains upon our souls.”

* * *

“Had you found a way to justify it,” Baahu begins abruptly, and Sivagami is pulled from her ruminations, blinking as though surfacing from a deep lake.

“Had you found a way to justify it,” Baahu begins again. “Had Bhalla and Uncle Bijjala found a way to present it to you, had you never learned of the conspiracy, had Devasena not come into the palace, had one thing gone differently that night, had matters continued unchecked long enough, you would have killed Mahendra too, even while he was still an infant.”

Sivagami’s eyes are dry, and her mouth is dry, and all she can do is nod.

* * *

Even in the afterlife, she gets migraines; even in the afterlife, she cannot stop worrying about Mahishmati and all its troubles; even in the afterlife, Baahu sits up all night with her, her head in his lap, and even in the afterlife, he is still there come morning.


End file.
